It’s a supply-and-demand world

IF ALL YOU READ about the oil industry was the Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial today, you’d get the impression that energy companies have few friends in Washington.

The Journal editorializes that all the federal government has done since Jimmy Carter’s time is to get in the way of oil companies that simply want to meet increasing U.S. demand for gasoline. It points out that the number of oil refineries in the United States has gone down since 1981, from 325 to 148, despite a 20% increase in demand. The Journal blames mountains of red tape and environmental restrictions that it says keep oil companies from opening new refineries, and it finds a ray of hope in President Bush’s call Monday to increase energy supplies.

But if the Journal is so eager to finger environmental laws, it should also place some of the blame on the oil companies themselves, who have voluntarily shut down many refineries over the years, presumably as a way to increase profits by reducing supply in the face of increasing demand.

But increasing consumption is the problem, the New York Times editorializes today. It says that unless people curtail their use of fossil fuels, we’re only going to see more mega-hurricanes driven by global warming, as numerous scientific journals have pointed out. Vaguely, the Times calls for “aggressive leadership” from the United States.

The Washington Post today is clear on what it wants from Bush -- an energy tax. The Post predicts that such a tax would stymie demand, thereby curtailing climactic change, among other things.